That’s the message from Roger Martin of the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity, and Carol Wilding, president and CEO of the board of trade, as they discussed a new report looking at an economic vision for the region.

In a speech, Martin noted that productivity growth in the city has actually declined 10 per cent from 2000 to 2010, as defined as real GDP per worker.

He put up a chart showing other major North American cities, some of which have enjoyed 10 to 25 per cent productivity growth over the same period. “This is a disgrace chart as far as I am concerned,” said Martin. “If anyone needs motivation to say ‘Toronto needs to do something,’ this is the chart.”

Martin said companies in the Toronto area need to work constantly on projects that push the envelope – ones that are substantial in size, that serve customers in a way that no competitor does, or that produce a product or service in a way that is different for anyone else in that industry. He said he suspects that at least half of all substantially sized companies in the Toronto area have no such projects underway. “Moving from zero to one at a time,” he said, “would make a big difference to Canadian prosperity.”

Part of the problem, he said, is that for too long Canadian industries enjoyed a high-tariff wall and trade protection, which are disappearing with new free trade agreements. “I think it is a complacency that’s borne somewhat culturally out of an era when all manufacturing and service industries were protected, and really protected,” Martin said.

The report, a collaboration between the institute and the board called Toward a Toronto region economic strategy, calls for increasing productivity growth by 10 per cent by 2025, as well as a strengthening of regional industry clusters such as financial services, information technology, processed food, education and life sciences.

It also urges investment in transportation, energy and smart technology.

Wilding said 2014 must be a turning point, noting that a municipal election campaign is already under way with a possible provincial election this spring.

“We must catch up. And we know the benefits are worth it,” she said in her speech. “Success can happen here. Our region can realize its full economic and social potential.

“It can be good enough or it can be great,” she said.

In addition, Wilding said, Toronto must work with its neighbours, rather than competing with municipalities such as Markham or Mississauga.

“It’s a message we have been putting out for some time now,” Wilding told reporters. “It is city regions competing against city regions. We all live a city regional lifestyle, of some type, in terms that we don’t see those borders.

“But I don’t think we have yet from leadership, from governments at a mayoral level or even at the provincial level enough action that looks at the Toronto region,” she said.

Martin added that Toronto must not forget it is competing with other great cities.

“We are in an era where cities are going to win or lose. Do you want to be Detroit? Do you want to be Philadelphia? And cities that are on this downward incline?” he said.

“No, you don’t. You want to be Seattle,” he said, and then rhymed off another list including Austin, Boston and Atlanta. “For that, I think there is no choice.

“There is no route to that kind of success as a city long-term without innovation. None that I can think of,” he said.

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